£ 97 m
project value
Titanic building, Belfast
The £97m iconic Titanic Belfast building provides seven upper storeys of accommodation covering an area of 14,000m2 along with a two-storey basement providing 520 car-parking spaces.
We provided a multi-disciplinary service including fire engineering advice and liaised with the statutory authorities to gain regulatory approval for the work.
The Titanic Belfast development was a major factor in the regeneration of Belfast’s Titanic Quarter and the revitalisation of the area’s heritage.
The building includes an arts centre, conferencing facilities, a theatre and restaurants but more importantly houses the Titanic Experience Museum.
Key details
Project name
Titanic building, Belfast
Client
Titanic Quarter Ltd
Location
Belfast, Northern Ireland
Services provided
- Fire engineering
- Structural engineering
- Civil engineering
- Landscape design
- Environment
Challenge
The building created several challenges that we had to overcome during both the design and construction of the works, including:
- Accommodate up to one million visitors per year
- Space for 500 cars in the basement
- Considerable plant and storage requirement
- Provide nine galleries over four floors with wide-ranging acoustic requirements and column-free space
- Banqueting, cafe and retail facilities
- Generous circulation spaces
- Flexibility and futureproofing of the space
- High-quality public realm
The building also presented various fire safety challenges as standard fire safety guidance couldn't be applied or allow for cost-effective design solutions due to the innovative nature of the architectural design. This included keeping stair sizes to a minimum to maximise the lettable floor area for exhibits and retail outlets.
The central atrium space is a focal point in the building and acts as a primary circulation space on the journey through the building. The atrium space is heavily occupied and forms part of the escape route from the building. Standard fire safety approaches wouldn't have permitted the atrium in its original proposed form, so we used fire engineering to justify its inclusion in the building design.
Solution
The upper ground level slab was designed to be a plaza for the public and emergency vehicles. The basement was an 1100mm dp flat slab supported on piles.
We produced a detailed National Building Specification (NBS) and method statements to ensure the concrete grade, cement content, w/c ratio and curing of the concrete were all addressed to ensure a good quality of concrete was achieved.
The superstructure comprised a steel frame with composite concrete beams and floors. The staircases provided stability, constructed in slip-form reinforced concrete. The cladding and glazing were fixed to the main frame with secondary steelwork. The ‘inverted’ structure (i.e., with floors getting larger as the height increased) meant that the stability of the frame was paramount. In some areas, steel columns had to be fabricated to suit both the aesthetics and as standard section sizes weren't available to span the unrestrained heights required.
A detailed fire strategy report was prepared for the development and the approving authorities throughout the design development stages of the project.
We undertook Advanced Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modelling to demonstrate that the visitors in the building would remain safe in the event of a fire, particularly within the central atrium space. Given the building's complex geometry, CFD modelling offered the only realistic technical approach to assessing in detail the development and growth of fire and the spread of smoke throughout the space.
We used the CFD model to assess the tenability conditions that residents in the atrium may be exposed to based on a range of agreed fire scenarios, and we determined that they would remain safe during a building emergency evacuation. The outcome was an award-winning building that retains the architect’s aspirations for a vibrant atrium space.
Project statistics
14000 m2
of accommodation across 7 floors
520
car parking spaces
Key contacts
Barry McAllister
Technical Director - Structural and Fire Engineering